Team:Toulouse/Practices
Practices
Education
The iGEM competition is not all about wet lab and finding sponsors. For our project to really be alive, public contact is paramount. When we first started to reach out to the public we realised that the issue of the decline in bee population was a well-known issue. Still in spite of this, most of the people interviewed weren't aware of the role played by Varroa destructor. This is why we focused a big part of our energy on communicating with the public, in order to raise awareness about a worrying situation.
ExpoSciences Midi-Pyrénées
Our team took part in the regional ExpoSciences in Toulouse. This event brings together scientists of all ages and levels who want to share their knowledge. It’s a good exercise in communication and it enabled us to make synthetic biology better known. Given that DNA is our main work tool, we decided to engage the children by letting them extract DNA from bananas, with ethanol and dishwashing soap.
Recipe for a successful banana DNA extraction!
|
|
|
This simple yet interesting experience helped us attract children to our stand. It was a great starting point
for us to start some indepth conversation with them about what they knew of DNA and what could be done with it.
Some of them weren't aware that banana had DNA at all and some teachers told us that our demonstration was very well designed and easy to understand without distorting the truth.
The stand having drawn everybody’s attention (thanks to the pungent smell of smashed bananas), our intervention was broadcasted on a local TV (TLT[1]), and we were also selected to take part in International ExpoSciences in Brussels.
Communication in junior high school
To carry on with our education mission, we agreed with one of the science teachers from the Leonard de Vinci junior high school of Tournefeuille to meet with the students. The plan? Bees, Varroas, an introduction to synthetic biology and, of course, banana DNA extraction!
Teatching about varroas and bees
We prepared a short presentation about varroa which was followed by a Q and A session where student were able to interact with us and each other about the disappearance of bees, pesticides, varroa and synthetic biology.
With the help of the teacher we were able to explain the basics of synthetic biology, the idea of biobricks
and spark a quick debate about GMO use. Most of the children were not antagonized to the use of a modified bacterium as long as it was confined in our Trapicoli, but we felt that the biological knowledge needed to fully understand synthetic biology was a little foreign to them, so we switched our lecture to focus
more on bees and the colony collapse disorder.
An unexpected advice
During the Q and A, we were asked about our studies and the kind of diploma we had. One question leading to another, without realising it we where already giving a full guidance lecture on the choices these children would have to make in the following years (which school to attend and why, why study science, etc...). Having a first hand account from students who had to go through the same process not so long ago reassured them and gave them some perspective on their future studies.
We hope that our intervention helped create a few scientific vocations (and even maybe a future iGEMer!)
The main aim of this intervention was to teach children about varroa and synthetic biology while creating interest for science in general. But for us it taught us how to adapt our speech too younger audience, we had to stop taking for granted notions such as genes and even DNA. The experience we acquired here was them reused and we became able to switch from a full science explanation to a simpler overview of our project without getting boring.
Giant Jamboree training: International Exposciences in Brussels
The team had the wonderful opportunity to take part the International ExpoSciences in Brussels,
during this science fair we had the chance to meet people from all around the world to exchange
knowledge and ideas. In the middle our summer our project had matured a lot and the expo was
the occasion for us to test it in the real world exchanging with scientist.
We also spent our time explaining the iGEM competition to visitors and participant alike
bringing light unto the synthetic biology field, still quite unknown.
We also took the opportunity of being in belgium and organised a quick meetup with KU Leuven iGEM team.
This communication is fully integrated into the Apicoli project enhancing its exposure and credibility toward people.
Besides this experience enabled us to meet his Excellency mister Bernard Valero,
the ambassador of France in Belgium, and mister Jean-Claude Guiraudon, CIRASTI President and MILSET Honorary President, both of them
wished us luck on our endeavours.
Overall this experience in Brussels was quite intense, we met so many people interested in science and it was refreshing to be able to get out the lab and develop our project on the field. We hope to feel the same engagement this September in Boston.
Looking forward!
With august looming over us, we had trouble organizing any education event. But iGEM does not stop the 28th of september, we have everything planned to keep our project alive outside of the competition:
-
Student's week: From 9th to 18th of October in Toulouse
The "Student's week" occuring in several towns in the Midi-Pyrénées region facilitate the integration of new student in Toulouse allowing them to participate in free event organized by associations. -
Scientilivre: 17th-18th of October
Taking place in Toulouse Scientilivre ("Science book") is here to present both books and science to the public. We plan to present our project Apicoli with posters and some playful experimentations for families.
